You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Christopher Hitchens - Hell's Angel: Mother Teresa. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

My favorite exchange is near the start:
Ritter: Mehdi Abadi never told us anything when he had plenty of opportunity to...
Hitchens: ...While his family was in the hands of Saddams secret police...
Ritter(hesitantly): ... Yeah, they were with Saddam's police ..
Hitchens: Come on!

It's very difficult to beat Hitchens, he's a master debater.

It wouldn't even matter if you had a stronger position, if you are not at his skill level and I'd say very few people are, he'd quite likely still "beat" you. This Ritter guy is not on equal level, one of his weaknesses is his passion, which I'm afraid in civil debate really just gets in the way.

If you're going to throw out a bone that a country is better off with a Dictator than the growing pains of a revolution, well, just get the shovel out and start digging.

Oh Saddam might of helped the country out a little when it was crashing and burning...oh lord BETTER keep him forever. What a shallow and stupid perspective, why does he want to rule over a dump site? Of course he'd like to improve it so he can rule something a little nicer. He's still a Dictator with crimes against humanity as long as they come.

Just a weird stance to have taken, I feel like Ritter knew he was getting a bit stupid but couldn't realistically back down without reducing the effect of the rest of his arguments.

It wasn't just waterboarding, Hitchens admitted he was wrong on Iraq as well.

One of the things I admired most about him was that on taking a strong stance on his beliefs, he was still willing to put those beliefs to the test and if persuaded change them.

As you know, he was sketchy on condemning water boarding, tried it, and came back unreservedly declaring it as unqualified torture. He did the same thing with his position on Iraq, but I can see how many missed it. During the first gulf war Hitchens was very publicly vocal in his opposition to the invasion, even debating and destroying Carleton Heston. After the war, Hitchens went to Iraq to live with Kurdish people, and he promptly came back with his mind changed and advocated from that day forward for the removal of Saddam.

The thought of Hitchens dead makes you sad? The whole idea of atheism should thoroughly depress you, then.

In general, Hitchens is great, but he's also frequently wrong.

He's wrong here, he was wrong about Iraq, and he was wrong about waterboarding, although at least he had the good grace to admit the last one.

Penn Jillette on Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris & Kraus

Spoiler, Hitchens 'wins' the debate. I can't honestly say I've watched or listened to a debate between him and anyone were that did not seem to be the case. As often is the case though too, his grandest victory is understated, brief and easily overlooked.

Ritter thumps hard on the absence of WMD in Iraq to condemn the invasion, which on it's surface seems a strong argument. Hitchens casually references an unwillingness to be lectured on WMD's by those who cautioned against invasion for fear that Saddam would use those WMD on US troops. Scott Ritter went on Crossfire before the invasion to state that Saddam could easily reconstitute his chemical weapons and invading was too risky.

This should cheer you up
http://videosift.com/video/Hitchens-Serves-Bill-Mahers-Panel

Great, remind me that Hitchens is dead, now I'm sad.

Lol, I never claimed to be a genius, but what I absolutely am is a pragmatist.

Give me solutions.

Hell, even Brand does this when he knows his subject. Listen to him talk about drug treatment. He's eloquent, impassioned and clear.

Whereas in these clips and others where he's talking about something he doesn't have a solution for, he's full of this kind of Chopra-esque hand-wavy nonsense.

Oh and blankfist is nowhere near as bad as Mother Theresa.

Hitchens accurately summed her up;
http://i.imgur.com/HCSlb.jpg

@artician

Even if the models for the decline of empires are inexact, poorly sourced or even exaggerated, they are doing so to combat the overwhelming force of the status quo that feeds us a constant stream of comforting, mind-numbing bliss through mass media, mostly delivered though TV news, advertising and cleverly veiled in the actual entertainment that the audience enjoys.

It's hard to mount a comeback against a presupposed cultural truth supported by any form of economic interest. The tobacco industry, for example, mounted powerful misinformation and doubt as scientific evidence slowly leaked out that smoking was harmful. People just don't want to hear that the way they live and what they "know" to be true is going to change and that personal choice is going to have to be limited to some extent.

The same is true for global warming, deforestation, species extinction, pollution, etc., etc. You can resist the "ineffectual mumblings" of Hitchens, Chomsky and the like, but you do so to at your own peril. People like you are the do-do bird in this scenario. People like you are the 2 pack-a-day smoker who thinks they've been smoking for 20 years and feeling fine so why quit now. "Screw the scientists, they're all out to make themselves rich so they concoct these cackamamy experiments to 'prove' they need more research funding." Okay, it's your right to dismiss the advice of people smarter than you.

This video follows the same vein as Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist series (which I suggest you watch or rewatch for shits and giggles.) The idea of consumption tax seems a lot easier for our system to adopt than Joseph's idea of a "Resource-Based Economy." It just sounds more fair that those consuming resources pay back into the system and less airy-fairy than some socialist "to-each as to his need" idea. And let's face it, it's right on a social level. It's just too hard to get there based on our current economic and political structure.

Our wasteful way of life is just unsustainable. I don't think anyone can deny that the ponzi scheme of FIAT money is eventually going to collapse because the balance of wealth is way out of whack AND ONLY GETTING WORSE. And the USA is at the top, and yet owes trillions in funny money that they can only pay back if they stop building missiles and tanks. But I think we all know that when the shit hits the fan, we're going to want to get behind those tanks to ride out the storm of resistance from the 99%. Not the privileged 99% in the west, the 99% of destitute, impoverished poor that build the toys, sew and clothes, glue the plastic Walmart crap, and GROW THE FOOD that we want.to have cheap. We're doing this all on the backs of the "free slaves" in undeveloped countries: Columbia, Bangladesh and on and on.

Search your feelings, Luke. You know it to be true.

"Ultimately it placates the opposition while not actually educating anyone, least of all those who are supportive of existing power."-Sounds like you're describing any and all alleged news organizations whose name(s) are ubiquitous with "news!"

and another, " As enlightened, open-minded individuals, we can do better than this."

Are you speaking for the giants of ineffectual mumblings like saaaay, Hitchens or Chomsky, or the internet-educated self-aware, the indentured meatsacks who if they had a plan, would toke a doobie and finish one more quest or porn clip before taking action?

As Hitchens said about Robertson's buddy Jerry Falwell the day Falwell died : "If you give him an enema you can bury him in a matchbox."